Eclipse

If one ever is inclined to question how important a change in director really can be on a film franchise, compare New Moon and Eclipse. The former film managed to get almost everything wrong and sorely misjudged the original charm of Twilight, while also doggedly and tediously rendering details of the text in such a way as to deprive them of any significance or charm.. The latter showed an impressive return to form and left me firmly in the belief that Twilight was in fact a great teen love story which happened to have a silly background of vampires and that that, most importantly, didn't really detract from a great movie.


For a start, despite continuing to rely on rather outrageous effects (and who wants to thank Stephanie Meyer for diamond-skinned vamps?), Eclipse manages to bumble through a hit-and-miss script that at least gives the protagonists a chance to speak their minds. Werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner) gives his most convincing arguments for Bella's heart, or is at least his most insistent, while she explains herself a little better than she's yet managed. Meanwhile Edward (Robert Pattinson), remarkably, pulls off a heretowith unmanaged feat and appears almost entirely sympathetic (and thankfully less sparkly). His reasons for being with Bella (Kristen Stewart), his old-fashioned values and concern for her soul, are offered in far more detail than we have seen before. He's not, for once, moany about it. He's clear and almost admirable. It's nice.


The plot flounders, but when were the Twilight films concerned with plot? There's less of the dire Volturi, and that's grand. The script, as noted, is patchy, but that means there's alternating hilariously bad, and hilariously sincere, dialogue, and why not? Since when were teens all about slick lines and pregnant pauses? The show must go on, at the end of the day, and Eclipse foreshadows a little more pregnancy to come: the bedroom scene between Bella and Edward is perhaps the most amusing scene in the film. Yet behind it lurks menace. Whoever takes up the Twilight mantle for the last book, which will be split into two films, better prepare to get as serious as Eclipse. And serious not with effects or emotional sincerity, but in giving the story a chance to flourish, and not taking itself too seriously. What teen movie does?


~~~
2010
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
dir. David Slade

Rambo: First Blood Part 2

There's really little to say to a franchise spinning itself out needlessly. Then again, Predators opened in cinemas last week and I'm about to review that so maybe something needs to be said about this lukewarm sophomore effort of Stallone's Rambo tetralogy.

The grand shame in this film is its promising start. John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), hardcore Vietnam veteran, is brought out of retirement and a hard labour penal sentence to return to 'Nam on a reconnaissance mission to locate POWs. Not only does the mission go drastically wrong, but the film starts to appear like it might have something to say about the vilification of the veterans back home in the United States.... until Sly decides he's done with orders, he's done with kit, he's done with clothes. All hell breaks loose.

Sadly it's not very well-choreographed hell. Nor is it underpinned by any kind of feeling or indeed even a semblance of reason. Rambo becomes superhuman just at the moment we hope to break through his untouchable army-hardman facade. The cast around him do little to emphasise his own emotional detachment; no robot stands out amongst robots. A love interest is meaninglessly tossed aside; the rogue general who's orchestrating the whole thing, or even the arrival of Russians (gasp!), does little to lift the madness above the mediocre. Even Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo's immediate superior, who played the trickster role in the first film, is barely one-dimensional here.

I can't say I expected better. But I was surprisingly disappointed by how woefully off-track this second Rambo managed to get in 90 minutes.

~~~

1985

Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna

dir. George P. Cosmatos

Up

Let's make a film for children. Let's make it funny and colourful and exciting, with the right dose of 'nasty villain' that we can fear and 'lovable idiot' that we can laugh at. Maybe throw in a dash of 'moving sub-plot' to push for a bit more emotional engagement. This film we've just made is definitely not Up.


The fact is, Up has all those elements. It has those elements in exceptionally well-drawn and engaging ways. But it goes so very far beyond that simple recipe that I was left wondering why children's films had ever assumed that that kind of formula worked. Pixar have been bold with Up. The opening sequence, so thoroughly lauded and praised, is something of an eye-opener; in only five minutes of footage, the film tells a whole life story, with the kind of deft brush strokes of plot and character that only master storytellers can aspire to. That's the real secret behind Pixar's genius, that the developers are indeed master fablers who settle for nothing less than a brilliant, gripping story from start to finish.


That opening can also be seen as symptomatic of the entire film; no punches pulled when going for all out emotional drama, no fear of letting emotions other than laughter lead the way in the plot. It's really a miracle that the film is funny at all, so concerned is it with darker emotion. But that means that the humour in the film, which is liberally sprinkled throughout, is all the more poignant. I found myself wondering whether we could really consider this film a comedy by its close. But that in itself is no problem: Pixar have been bold enough not to offer a standard comedy. In doing so, they have given us so much more.


Beautifully plotted, illustrated, scored and voiced, Up is in equal measure charming and moving. A must-see. 


~~~
2009
Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson
dir. Pete Docter & Bob Peterson